It seems that the heat in Phoenix has once again taken its toll on the mental capacities of our noble Board of Regents D and even the cool mountain air up in Flagstaff could not bring them out of their delirium.

Their most recent display of insanity rests (as usual) upon a nonexistent, theoretical idea. In order to deal with an expected influx of 55,000 new university students and 90,000 community-college students by the year 2010, our brilliant visionaries are in the process of designing a new four-year college right here in picturesque Pima County.

The board's most recent decision was to house the new college, at least temporarily, in another up-and-coming military-industrial complex, the UA/IBM Research Park. Doesn't it strike anyone as maybe curious, or perhaps ridiculous, that the sparkling new, small (10,000 enrollment cap), liberal-arts college will be housed with the Hypertechnology Money Machine? Won't that simply be creating the University of Arizona in miniature?

And everyone knows what that means: Given time, the research sector will conquer the hearts and minds of administrators, Strategic Budget Phasing Out (pronounced SB-ee-Po in Administratorspeak) begins and ALL non-research-oriented programs are systematically done away with, bureaucracy grows and acronyms rule the day.

And what are University of Arizona officials doing amid all this? Certainly not focusing on the graphic deterioration of the real UA. Hell no, that would be too boring. They are lending their expert guidance and attention, which by the way UA students have paid for in one way or another, to the formation of this fledgling college.

Celestino Fernandez, UA vice president in charge of planning (or something, we're not sure what), apparently has taken up the occupation of thinking up baffling new replies to various questions. After all, what are vice presidents for? For example, when confronted with the recent approval of an August 1995 starting date for classes at the new college, Fernandez called the decision "exceedingly ambitious." Is it good or bad to be "exceedingly ambitious"? The world may never know.

Meanwhile, UA Faculty Chairman J.D. Garcia has pointed out the unreasonableness of the 1995 startup date due to the lack of any academic planning. But then the regents reminded the foolish academicians that this was all a game, that the date was (of course) only a goal, sillies!

And as the sun set across the dusty Old Pueblo, a pesky landscape architecture program was quietly put out of its misery and all those lazy Wildcats could rest assured that even in the blazing summer heat, it was "politricks as usual" in Arizona. Read Next Article